Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/249

 are two of the legends that have grown out of these wild-fires: —

In the Nikaido district of Settsu province, from the middle of March to the end of June every year, there may be seen, resting sometimes on the top of a tree, a globe of fire, about a foot in diameter, which, when examined intently, is found to have a human face peering from its lurid surface. It is a harmless phenomenon. The people regard it with pity, recalling its origin. For, in remote ages, there lived in this district one Nikōbō, a beadsman (yamabushi), celebrated for his skill in exorcism. His services having been solicited on behalf of the sick wife of the local governor, he passed many days by the side of the lady's couch, practising his pious art. She recovered, but her husband, in an excess of jealousy, caused Nikōbō to be put to death, charging him with a foul crime. His benevolent work thus requited with inhuman wrong, the soul of the beadsman flamed with resentment, and taking the form of a miraculous fire, hovered over the roof of the murderer's house, and kindled a fever in his blood that finally consumed him. Since that time Nikōbō's ghost-flame pays a yearly visit to the scene of its suffering and its revenge.

At the base of the Katada hills in Omi province there lies a lake from whose margin, on cloudy nights in early autumn, a little ball of fire emerges. Creeping towards the feet of the